A Romance Of Long Ago

Boston Special to New York Sun: Among the thousands of documenta stored in the state house are three letters and part of a Journal that outlines a romance of the days when Massachusetts waa a province governed by Thomas Hutehinson. It is a story that has not been known to the world and not even to the personal friends of those interested. The characters in this romance are a tltled lover, a father who refused his sanction to a proposed marriage, and a New England maiden who dled In ignorance of both the love and the lover's vain plea. Some letters are missing. The first document in the story is a letter to Gov. Hutehinson, dated April 6, 1771. The writer was Willlam, son of Lord Fitzwilliam, and in this letter he recites his love for the governor's daughter, telling his Btory with old-time courtesy. He says: "I have had the honor of seeing Miss Hutehinson, hut have never spoken to her. I need not teil you I admire her when I say that I wish to cali her mine." The lover pleads for the father's consent to vlslt the daughter, "as the most honorable method of proceeding to getting acquainted with her." Gov. Hutchinson's methodical reply in duplícate, in his own cramped handwriting, is preserved. In it he says: "In my station I should, from respect to my Lord Fitzwilliam, think It my duty to do all in my power to discourage his son from so unequal a match with any person in the province, and I should most certainly be highly criminal if I should countenance or encourage a match with my own daughter. I trust you will think this a sufficient reason for my not acceding to your proposal, and I sincerely wish you happy in a person more suited to your birth and rank, and who may be approved of by your honorable parent." At this polnt there is a gap in the story. The young man evidently wrote a second time, but neither the second letter nor the governor's reply is in the archives. It is certain, though, that the governor did not relent, and in a third letter the young man craved a personal interview, as the shlp to wSich he was attached, the Boston, was to sail that day, not, as he says, "that I shall desire you to give me the least encouragement with regard to my former letter, but as I think it necessary to wait on you." There is no record of the interview, but it must have been a sad ene if held, for the governor was a kind-hearted man and a devoted husband, who never forgot to celébrate as the happiest day of his life the anniversary of his wedding. The beautiful Miss Hutehinson, for whose hand the young man was suing, was the governor's second daughter, Margaret, of whom the father always speaks in his letters and journal as "Peggy." Peggy was but 17 years old when the letters were written, and she died of consumption at Chelsea, England, when she was 23. The delicate beauty which young William admired so much aróse partly from her consumptive tendencies. For several years the family was in England. According to the father's journal he ealled upon the queen on Aug. 28, 1777. "The queen asked where I had been," he writes, "and I told her I had been six months in the country with my sick daughter. The queen expressed the hope that she would eoon recover." But Peggy died on the 21st of the fcllowing month. Almost on that same date her father wrote in his diary that her Majesty's ship the Boston was again on the Massachusetts coast. There is nothing In any of the Governor's journals to show that Peggy was ever told of young Fitzwilliam'a love for her, and nothing to show that the young man ever saw the girl of his early love after the father had crushed hope out of hls heart.